


Strong Arming a Spitfire

by Pegunicent



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 13:17:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16661747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pegunicent/pseuds/Pegunicent
Summary: Epic non-Romance of Alex Louis Armstrong and Doctor Spitfire Long Zhu





	Strong Arming a Spitfire

Alex Louis Armstrong met the love of his life in a sandy pit. He didn't know it at the time, he was a little distracted fighting a war and the encroaching disillusionment of a government ordering the mindless slaughter of innocent women and children. She was naked, covered in fierce sunburns and starved to the point of emaciation.

The Armstrong Family had always been loyal, always been soldiers and alchemists and bore their Amestrian heritage with pride. A strange, foreign teenager in desperate distress was still a possible enemy of the state, but Alex couldn't make himself turn her over. Not to Basque or Kimblee or...

"Qǐng bāng wǒ?"

Marcoh was a doctor. Mustang had Xing ancestry. He'd made up his mind and taken off his uniform coat to cover her when Hawkeye arrived, possibly scouting, possibly making sure he wasn't going AWOL. 

"Nǐ shì tiānshǐ ma?"

"I'm escorting her to the medical tent." Alex put as much confidence as he could in the declaration, and embraced the painful clench of relief when Hawkeye only nodded, her hard eyes scanning the Ishvar countryside. 

"Any idea where she came from?"

"Xing."

"The border is a months march."

Alex didn't have a better answer, but Hawkeye didn't question further, and between them they got the girl stumbling in the right direction. Her feet were blistered and cracked, she had to be dehydrated, but she stubbornly put one foot in front of the other. 

 

 

Mustang gave them all a put upon frown, weary and strained as the rest of the State Alchemists. "A Xing immigrant. Coming across the desert."

"She's been exposed to the elements for a while." One of Marcoh's few nurses muttered, pushing more water on the girl. "Dehydrated, third degree burns and blisters, infection, advanced starvation..."

"Alright but why is she *here*? There's nothing here bit Izhvarites and sand." 

"Nǐ hěn chǎo, hěn zhuānhèng." The girl muttered, earning a glower and a huff. If Alex had to guess, Mustang might have only rudimentary skills with the language. Better than anyone elses. 

"Alright," Mustang muttered and cleared his throat. Alex felt a tinge of guilt for putting the man on the spot for something he was unprepared for utterly. "Nǐ jiào shénme míngzì? Nǐ cóngnǎlǐ lái?"

She blinked at him a few times, finally arching a fine brow in unmistakable amusement, her lips faintly twitching. "Nǐ de kǒuyīn hěn cánkù. Nǐ shì yòng yāzi jiào de ma?"

Mustang's eye twitched and Alex helpfully pulled the nurse aside to ask her about spare clothes and bandages. No need for the poor woman to learn the charming Major had any flaws buried under his pretty face. 

There was some back and forth, Mustang needing to repeat himself a few times before the stream of strange syllables and nearly poetic rising and falling tones ended in silence. When he looked over, the girl had her glass to her lips and was staring at the wall, Mustang was looking thoughtful and a bit strained. 

"She claims she doesn't remember anything before the desert. Not her name, her childhood, or how she got here. You said she had a tattoo?"

Alex nodded, and before someone took away the girls meager coverings, he grabbed a sheet from the nurses clipboard and her pen and deftly copied the design he'd seen. "It covers her back from nape to tailbone, a very artistic and beautiful rendition!" he proclaimed, showing the stylized butterfly made of odd swirls and points, like fire and smoke trapped in outlines of a spread winged insect. "I am amazed at Xing artistry and aesthetic, it would be a delight to learn more!"

Mustang gave him an odd look, then studied the page for a few long moments. "Not many in Xing admit to their ink work. You might find it a difficult subject. Nurse would her condition explain her amnesia?"

The nurse was glaring a bit at the theft of her papers but sighed and shook her head at Alex's hopeful expression. "Possibly. Physical trauma oft makes for an uneasy mind but better to ask the doctor."

"Hmm. And physical trauma on top of emotional, possibly physical abuse?"

"Oh yes, if the girl doesn't *want* to remember that's easier still to forget. Running across the desert to escape seems an odd choice though."

Mustang's smile was... grim Alex decided. Grim and rueful. "There are fifty clans in Xing, and one Emperor. To keep the country unified the Emperor takes fifty wives, one from each clan, and sends them home pregnant. The heirs then must battle each other over succession. Some would consider being the Emperor's tribute wife to be an honorable position. Other's?"

She couldn't be older than Mustang, barely out of childhood still waiting for the full bloom of of becoming an adult. 

It struck Alex, though he'd already decided to help, exactly what needed to be done. 

"She's a refugee seeking asylum then! It is our duty to make sure she understands the process of becoming a full Amestris citizen and can undertake those steps legally with full protections granted a political asylum seeker!"

Alex manfully ignored Mustang's pained groan, he was relishing the return of his families sparkles for doing the Right Thing.

 

 

It takes weeks, but Alex finds he enjoys spending his free time helping their newest ally learn their language and picking up bits of Xing from her. Mustang frequently joins them, usually with paper and scavenged or alchemized pencils to try and trade key words and theories. Though the medical tents are no place for anyone at all healthy, they've actually had more people leaving than entering lately and the nurses almost look forward to the change of pace, making their own unsubtle suggestions to the curriculum. 

They've reached nearly a routine when of course hostilities erupt into shouting, shooting, casualties pouring into the medical tent and Alex and Roy out onto the field. Alex keeps his head on his shoulders and makes his punches count. He keeps his eyes behind the bright smoke screen of Mustang's blaze and tells himself this is war. Those are soldiers. He's saving lives. He's protecting that girl still struggling to pronounce his name. 

The battle, if it can be called that, is over in bare hours, a new boundary and ceasefire written in bloody sand. 

Alex and Roy head back to their own tents before the medical one. Alex to change his uniform and stare himself in the shaving mirror Mustang... he doesn't ask but there's the faintest hint of alcohol on his breath. 

The medical tent is of course organized chaos. Nurses run to and fro, Marcoh stands to one side directing traffic but mostly watching. Their refugee however is in it up to her elbows. Literally. She stands at a bunk in a nurses apron and spare set of scrubs her hands in a man's guts yelling what Alex can only assume are Xinganese curses. Mustang looks about to sick up so Alex aims him back outside the tent. 

So distracted making sure his peer doesn't contaminate the 'sterility' of a medical area Alex almost misses the flare of Alchemy overspill. Marcoh of course, saving lives. He is the authority on bioalchemy, a true alchemist doctor. But when Alex looks back Marcoh is only watching, along with the rest of the tent, as their refugee does something with the man's innards. When she pulls back the flickering over spill is still happening, drawing with it glimmering sparkles of decided shrapnel. Her cursing get more excited and Alex moves on auto, the one word he understands urging him to action. He grabs his uniform top, rips it apart into strips and moves to bind the man's torso and abdomen. Somewhere in the process boiling water and stitches and morphine shots appear and are issued to the whimpering mess of a lieutenant according to his stripes. Lieutenant Brosh. 

Alex becomes enlisted in the medical tent's workings from that point, following a tiny furious Xing girl who makes people scrub their hands and arms in scalding water. Uses her alchemy to attract and draw out the metalic bullets, shrapnel and shells that might cause further injury and infection. Set broken limbs and trusts Alex to bind them at her pointed direction. No one bleeds out but he can't explain why. No one dies, though many are in drugged comas. Marcoh never interferes, just watches and holds his own council while soldiers turned victims become patients and people. Not statistics. Not condolence letters. 

It's the first time the girl uses her talent for the good of Amestris. Alex will remember it for the rest of his days, and the repercussions. 

Two and a half weeks, three skirmishes and a long discussion after which they've settled on the name Spitfire Long Zhu, a package of paperwork arrives, straight from the desk of the Furher. In it are requisition forms, supply dates, and a draft letter. Marcoh fills out the black fields with neat, draftsmanship lettering while Brasque thrusts upon her a uniform bundle, bath kit and pistol. Alex realizes with sickening revelation that they haven't reached 'consequences' in their list of trade words yet. From the jaw clenched look Mustang sports, it's a similarly unpleasant epiphany for him. 

Alex Armstrong met the love of his life in a sand pit, but at the time he was fighting a war, disillusionment, and a cultural divide as wide as the desert wastes.

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU that my friend and I came up with ages ago and I'm finally writing down. Yes Zhu is my own character, yes the timeline will change a little but major events and relationships will remain the same. 
> 
> Google Chinese:
> 
> Please help me.  
> Are you angels?  
> You're loud and bossy.  
> What is your name? Where are you from?  
> Your accent is atrocious. Were you taught by a duck?


End file.
